Today in Did That Really Get 196 Upvotes on Reddit: A Redditor claiming to be the owner of a brothel in Thailand explains how what he euphemistically calls the “problems in the sex industry” are mostly the fault of evil, lazy whores. Literally.

According to him, sex trafficking isn’t really a big issue, but when it does occur it “is more likely to victimize men” than women. (The main victims in his mind being trafficked men (by which I assume he means transwomen) … and male sex tourists.)

Those poor, poor Western sex tourists, suffering so at the hands of women and girls who’ve been kidnapped and sold into sex slavery!

While ChaChaKrahp seems quite sincere in his beliefs, this is the Internet, and so there’s a chance that this “brothel owner” is not actually a brothel owner at all, just some dude making this all up for Reddit karma points and lulz.

Even if that’s the case, we still have all those hundreds of Redditors who read his comments and happily upvoted them, either because they thought what he said was sensible or true, or because the thought of owning a brothel in Thailand gave them boners.

The question remains: does Reddit attract the worst representatives of those in its heavily young, male, geek demographic, or is this how most of these (mostly) guys really think — even if they don’t usually say so out loud?

Comments

Oh, good fucking call spelling it differently, MRAL. Because the reason people object to that word is it doesn’t have enough ‘k’s and ‘w’s in it. When you turn it into a hyphenated compound, the racism goes the fuck away.

But seriously, and I mean seriously, so I hope you’re paying attention: fuck you, you slimy toad of a human being.

Also MRAL: No one here gives a rats ass about your penis. No one. In fact, bragging about it is just plain creepy, so if you could maybe never talk about your penis again, ever, we’d all appreciate it. Thanks.

On that note, it’s weird that MRAL keeps mentioning how goddamn unattractive he thinks he is in every post he can squeeze it into, yet this is (to my knowledge) the first time he’s mentioned his penis. Is this going to be one of those phrases he keeps shoehorning in, like “I have a high IQ”?

Shaenon, what opinions? I was just discussing Schwyzer’s story and my reaction to it. Sure, I’d gladly go share that (with identifying names removed), but I unfortunately don’t have any female friends.

Yes, that’s what I want you to do. Go talk about that with someone in the real world. She does not have to be a friend. Talk to a classmate or dorm neighbor or professor or whatever.

Opinions you’ve stated on this thread:

— The media and public discourse and massively skewed toward women’s perspectives, to the point that men are just grateful to see anything at all written from a man’s perspective.
— People your age have never known a world in which women are disadvantaged, and most young men resent that.
— Feminists “demonize men, refer to them as oppressors, discuss women’s shit ad naseum, excommunicate men from their girls’ club for failing to be perfect princes at all times.”
— If a prominent female pundit admitted to trying to kill her boyfriend, nobody would have a problem with it.
— Only men are harassed and attacked online.
— Unattractive men are treated much more harshly by society than unattractive women.
— Although racism is kind of a problem, you have a harder life than most black people.

Choose any one of these and discuss it with a real person. Come back when you’ve done that.

I am in awe that MRAL managed to totes ignore the long fucking post from hell.

That said, and seeing the way we’ve all fallen into repeating things, I am hereby and forthwith saying in front of you all: *as god is my witness* (well, I don’t believe in Him, but he can witness), even if MRAL is allowed back and posts, I will never ever say anything to him or about him again.

*Strikes valiant pose*

I resolved for news year’s to completely ignore/not read the blog of an extremely racist misogynistic stalking diskbiscuit who pretends to be an sf writer, and I’ve kept that up for um *counts on fingers* 24 days.

“Pretty girls don’t have any kinds of problems. Because they’re pretty.”

He’s not the first angry sexist dude I’ve heard that from, which is why my patience is thin. (I’m quite a bit older than you two, I think, so I’ve been hearing that shit for a long time.) Also the word “picky” is telling, in that it implies that the person exercising their right to choose their sexual partners in terms of whatever works for them is being unreasonable. It’s also hilarious that he keeps going “yeah well I’m picky too, so there! u mad?” despite getting a “so what?” response every time. He’s trying so very hard to paint us as unreasonable, hypocritical, etc, and it’s failing so badly.

“Oh, man, his posts on Schwyzer earlier in the thread. The attempted murder doesn’t even register. He’s like, whatever, sometimes you go on a bender and do crazy shit, and maybe you kill one of those things that are kind of human-shaped except they have boobs, what’s the big deal? It’s not like a person would get hurt, right?”

And then goes, no, I value all living beings! I mean, if some poor guy kills them when he’s wasted then that’s understandable, but I totes value them. It reminds me of something from my college psychology classes way back, when they talked about microexpressions, which are tiny little facial expressions that give your true feelings away when you’re trying to lie or conceal something. MRALs comments are often the text equivalent of microexpressions, and either he knows they were out of line and makes excuses when challenged, or sometimes (like the whole attempted murder when wasted thing) he seems genuinely surprised that someone is challenging his selfish white dude privilege, and very offended. It’s funny, if you have a sufficiently grim sense of humor.

“I think I, personally, have it worse than most black dudes on the whole, sure, but me being white is one individual advantage I will definitely admit to.”

See, Stiv I would consider just plain ugly (though as mentioned, an awesome guy). If you want sexy-ugly, maybe Iggy Pop?

About the poly derail, which is certainly more fun than the MRAL Show, recently it seems that the majority of the poly people I meet are sexy women. Maybe that’s just who hits on me who’s poly, I dunno, but it’s been a noticeable trend.

@CassandraSays: I’m 56, but I swore off men in any romantic/sexual/attachment sense in late 82/83, so yeah I haven’t heard that often. I see some sexists and some sexist assholes at work–but luckily I don’t have to spend that much time with them.

Lucky! I heard that a lot when I was younger, and still hear it often in the tech community. I also hear it sometimes from women, which is a different issue (it’s not about “why won’t they fuck me!”, usually), which is also annoying, but at least it lacks the potentially rapey undertone. When this conversation happens between women it’s just sort of frustrating because yes, pretty privilege is an actual thing, but I’m not seeing how fighting about it among ourselves is going to improve the situation, and no, pretty women are not immune to sexism.

From men, though, it’s just ridiculous. The only way a woman automatically has more power than a man because she’s pretty is if she’s somehow managed to use her looks to make lots and lots of money, which is then class/financial rather than beauty privilege, and even then he still has more power in many situations. Basically it’s just a combination of anger about the women the man finds pretty not having sex with him and lack of the empathy required to notice the ways in which her life might suck.

– The media and public discourse and massively skewed toward women’s perspectives, to the point that men are just grateful to see anything at all written from a man’s perspective.
– People your age have never known a world in which women are disadvantaged, and most young men resent that.
– Feminists “demonize men, refer to them as oppressors, discuss women’s shit ad naseum, excommunicate men from their girls’ club for failing to be perfect princes at all times.”

Scarily enough, I had an acquaintance of mine I’d always thought of as being polite and well-adjusted brought up those ideas exactly at the NYE party I went to. He didn’t seem to think they’d be controversial ideas.

MRAL, if you’re still reading this, here’s another link. I would really, really like you to read this, and its associated entries. This isn’t to make you feel bad, or to point out anything wrong with you. This is an assessment (by a man) of the problems with how our culture constructs masculinity. The pain you feel about not being the “right” kind of man is not a pain that is unique to you, and there are men out there who can help you not hurt so much in the future.

Gah. MRAL: He turned on the gas. He says in that article that he called a friend. (Interestingly enough, someone found an earlier version of the story where he hadn’t mentioned the girlfriend *or* a friend called, just a neighbor who smelled gas). They still both *went to the hospital.* He didn’t just *think about it.* He actively tried to *kill her* along with himself. Someone else came in and *saved them both.*

Has anyone ever tried to kill you? How do you think you’d feel about them today, if the only reason you were alive was because a third party stopped it?

MRAL, if you can’t find it in your squishy little heart of hearts to give a shit about women, and you won’t get therapy, here’s what you can do instead of just feeling sorry for yourself and trying (unsuccessfully) to get feminists (of all people) to feel sorry for you as well.
Go find a men’s homeless shelter to volunteer at. Dish out soup. Clean floors. Answer the phone. Anything at all. Only for men, great, whatever. Just *enough about you* already. Go give a shit about someone else in the world. Anyone at all. At least, fake it till you make it. Hell, maybe you’ll make some friends. Work experience. Fresh air.

“Holly, I agree, being white is one universal advantage. That doesn’t mean that all knee-grows have it worse than all crackers. And yet everyone is treating my claim like some sort of hilarious Louis CK routine.”

Ever heard of “intersectionality”? Go on, Google it, I’ll wait.

“PS- It’s hilarious because all these “racist reactions” (re. “clutch your purse tighter”), is something feminists actually love to defend, so long as it’s gendered and not racial.”

That is because people blame us if a man does anything unpleasant to us, therefore we tend to be suspicious around men until we get to know and trust them. Not that knowing them well necessarily protects us but we do try to minimize risks. This is because we know that police, friends, family and total strangers are likely to say something like ” well, what were you doing there at that time of night, you were asking for trouble” or ” you were wearing that slinky red thing? What do you expect?” or “well, why did you open the door for him?” or “You shared a house with him so, of course, he thought you wanted it”. These are all things that have been said either to me or to other people in my hearing. And then there are all those helpful lists that get passed around, telling us how to avoid being raped that really just piss us off and make us paranoid.

Tell you what: you (and the rest of society) quit victim blaming and we’ll stop being defensive. Deal?

I shouldn’t be taking you in any way seriously, you’re just a malicious troll. You really need to get away from the damned computer and make an actual life for yourself.

i don’t know if he knew about fellow wonkey-eyed Tom Yorke before I recommended them, but I still take credit 🙂 But it is now official, he has reached stage 2 of teenage angst and we are bringing in the big guns.

Let us all hope that in a few years time, after lots of therapy, MRAL reaches Stage 3 – the realization of how ridiculous your own angst is and what an ass you’ve been making of yourself, followed by lots and lots of self-mockery.

I’m a bit older than most of you so my taste in music tends to be a bit different. I love singer/songwriters and protest song writers. Most of the music I listen to has some political content. I’m particularly fond of Billy Bragg, the Pogues, Midnight Oil (until Garrett went into politics) and I also like individuals and bands who talk in honest ways about depression (I’m depressive myself and it can be very comforting to know that someone understands how I feel) so I’m pretty fond of Radiohead because I appreciate Thom Yorke’s honesty about it. I have a fondness for Tory Amos as well.

This is one of my favorite Billy Bragg songs. It was released in Australia on JJJ the same week that those vile “Grim Reaper” adds about AIDS were released on Australian television. Do the Australians here remember those horrible things? This song was a wonderful antidote to the panic they engendered in some parts of our community:

Oh yeah. I remember the Grim Reaper ads, and the ones with beds made of needles. On the other hand, I also remember Streetwize comics on safe sex and sharing needles, which were brilliant because they were practical, and illustrated situations you might find yourself in.

Pecunium: I will definitely check. Out The Oysterband! Thank you for the headsup.

Magpie: I didn’t see those particular comics but I do remember some cool ones that Neil Gaiman did featuring Death and John Constantine! I really resented those ads. They were designed only to panic people and demonize the gay community, who were doing a sterling job controlling the spread of AIDS within their own community. I was living at the time in a large, inclusive household and a large number of the people who lived there were gay men who were really active in the community trying to spread facts, rather than panic and disinformation.

Oh, and I have another song…I’m not sure how popular Nick Cave is outside Australia but this is one of my favorites:

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